Christa Thiel is supposed to help the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) to make a fresh start on Saturday. The lawyer, former President of the German Swimming Association, confirmed to the FAZ on request that she had taken over the chairmanship of the new election of the DOSB Presidium.
Christa Thiel was convinced at the time to step down from the candidacy to succeed Thomas Bach, President of the DOSB at the time, because Alfons Hörmann had the majority of the associations behind him. On Saturday, Hörmann in Weimar will no longer stand for election after eight years at the head of the umbrella organization. His withdrawal one year before the end of his term of office is the result of anonymous and open complaints about his management style.
A possibly complex election event awaits Christa Thiel. In addition to the favored Thomas Weikert, the fencing president Claudia Bokel competes for the presidency. In addition, there are five vice-presidential posts to be filled. Weikert wants to work with Verena Bentele (President of the VdK), the pediatrician Kerstin Holze and Miriam Welte (Vice President of the LSB Rhineland-Palatinate). Stefan Klett, President of the State Sports Association of North Rhine-Westphalia, also wants to apply for a place on the Presidium. A promising candidate is Helmut Schmidbauer, Vice President of the German Tennis Association. Stephan Mayer (CSU), most recently Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, also showed interest. However, it is not certain whether and when he will be able to take up office as a former member of the government.
In the course of moving chairs, Oliver Stegemann (President of the Sports Acrobatics Association) could end up in the Presidium. As can be heard, three members of the old presidium are considering running again. The elections are to be preceded by an amendment to the statutes, which, among other things, would dissolve the departmental principle in the Presidium and result in a more gender-sensitive procedure. Accordingly, the vice posts would be filled through a list election process. “We have no experience with that,” said one functionary, “that could produce strange results.”
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